1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a modular jack. More specifically, the present invention relates to a structure of a modular jack to which a modular plug for a LAN (Local Area Network) is connected, the modular jack being compactly installed in an electronic device such as a notebook PC, enabling a height reduction in the electronic device.
2. Related Art
An electronic device such as a notebook PC is provided with a modular jack for LAN connections on a side face or a rear face thereof. As a modular plug for a LAN, an RJ45 plug with 8 pin contacts is widely used. Many electronic devices such as notebook PCs therefore employ an RJ45 jack as a modular jack for a LAN.
Recently, the modular jack as described above is mounted on a printed circuit board and installed in an electronic device such as a notebook PC. However, the modular jack according to conventional techniques is has a large thickness and has a disadvantage in that it increases the size of the notebook PC in which the modular jack is installed.
In order to solve the abovementioned disadvantage, a modular jack is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-92159, for example, (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1). Patent Document 1 discloses a modular jack that can be electrically connected to a plug inserted into an insertion opening provided on a first end thereof, the modular jack comprising: a cuboidal housing with the insertion opening for the plug and a plug receiving chamber; and a cover housing. The cover housing can extend a side face of the housing adjacent to the insertion opening and extend the insertion opening, allowing insertion of the plug into the plug receiving chamber.
In other words, in the modular jack according to Patent Document 1, in a state before insertion of the plug into the jack, the side face of the cover housing overlaps the side face of the housing to a predetermined extent, and the height (h) of the jack is smaller than the height (H) of the jack after the insertion of the plug.
However, the modular jack according to Patent Document 1 includes a mechanism to pivotally support both side faces adjacent to a wall of the plug receiving chamber on the opposite side to the insertion opening such that the cover housing is rotatable, as a structure for extending the side face of the housing adjacent to the insertion opening and extending the insertion opening for the plug. Due to the thickness of the plug receiving chamber and the housing composing the plug receiving chamber with such a mechanism, the height (h) of the modular jack according to Patent Document 1 becomes greater than a prescribed height (Hp) of a plug corresponding to the RJ45 plug.
There is a demand for modular jacks for a LAN, such as the RJ45 jack, to be of lower height. This is because configuring the height of a modular jack to be less than the prescribed height (Hp) of the RJ45 plug enables reduction in the height of an electronic device such as a notebook PC in which the modular jack is installed.